The funny thing about the National Anthem of the Soviet Union is that through the sixty-so years of its existence the lyrics were written all by one man. [more inside]
posted by curuinor at 10:53 PM PST - 22 comments

“The customer is always right — not here, you understand? I hate that phrase — the customer is always right. Why is the merchant always wrong? Can the customer ever be wrong? Is that not possible?” Gaming Google's PageRank algorithm, one online glasses merchant's prime directive seems to be Don't Be Evil.
posted by ocherdraco at 8:57 PM PST - 112 comments

"All reform movements, from the battle for universal health care to the struggle for alternative energy and sane environmental controls to financial regulation to an end to our permanent war economy, have run into this new, terrifying configuration of power. They have confronted an awful truth. We do not count." [more inside]
posted by Chipmazing at 8:51 PM PST - 85 comments

Allyson Townsend's YouTube channel ("ASL Ally") carries her popular ASL and SEE interpretations of popular music. It was shut down after complaints from the copyright holders, but after an intervention by the EFF they reconsidered their position and ASL Ally is back online! (source: BoingBoing)
posted by Joe in Australia at 8:31 PM PST - 15 comments

A new documentary entitled "The Vanishing of the Bees", narrated by actress Ellen Page, begins showing on November 29th, 2010. [more inside]
posted by MHPlost at 7:41 PM PST - 39 comments

What Food Says About Class "As more of us indulge our passion for local, organic delicacies, a growing number of Americans don’t have enough nutritious food to eat."
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 7:31 PM PST - 174 comments

Flash Saturday Night Special: GunBlood, Western-style dueling. Draw! [more inside]
posted by griphus at 6:10 PM PST - 11 comments

Our wisdom teeth need to be pulled because our brains are too big: The Top Ten Daily Consequences of Having Evolved
posted by Huplescat at 5:47 PM PST - 65 comments

Artist Sarah Musi sent little pieces of art to forty-five artists, along with a tiny blank canvas for them to create something and return it. So far she has received six back.
posted by gman at 3:31 PM PST - 22 comments

The problem of beer. "Since beer bottles are not (usually) pathological or “wild” spheres, but smooth manifolds, they separate 3-space into two non-communicating regions: inside, containing beer, and outside, containing you. This state must not remain."
posted by MuadDib at 1:22 PM PST - 54 comments

I hate to be the one to link to this, but...
So what do you think this linguistic practice should be called? “lying qualifiers?” “false fronts?” “wishwashers?” “but-heads?” Heh heh heh...
posted by oneswellfoop at 11:43 AM PST - 101 comments

Since its viral reenactment of the Tiger Woods story a year ago, Taiwan's Next Media Animation has been churning out 11 minutes of surprisingly lifelike news animation a day, sparking a feud with Conan and garnering lots of social media attention. [more inside]
posted by l33tpolicywonk at 11:31 AM PST - 16 comments

to talk about the concept of "time" before the big bang; the Cyclic Universe Theory proposes an alternative to the predominant Inflation Theory that led to this intuition. Now Gurzadyan and Penrose have observed low-variance rings in the CMB, supporting the notion that it makes sense
posted by jjray at 9:39 AM PST - 41 comments

An action packed thriiler
posted by sgt.serenity at 8:38 AM PST - 68 comments

After scanning the old 'tube for a long while, I have selected the six most appealing videos that document n-scale realism. The selection is based on realistic impression, detail (landscaping and models), and camera use. N-scale model railroading has gained ground over the years. One reason is that the 1:160 scale, while small, provides superior overall realism. This first example shows a bridge scene at three angles, then an overview shot of the entire part of the layout, and a shot of the prototype scene. [more inside]
posted by Namlit at 7:45 AM PST - 39 comments